Lead Thou Me On

"Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness. If everything has to be known, if everything has to be explained, if everything has to be certified, then there is no need for faith. Indeed, there is no room for it." -Boyd K Packer (What is Faith?, Book of Mormon Institute Manual)

The Sky Can Become Our Possibility

The other day I posted on Facebook that I'm once again suffering from a severe case of My-Life-is-Excellent-itus, because frankly, it'd been a good day.

And things keep getting better.

Anne Frank, and sadly I'm paraphrased because I haven't read her diary in some six years, said she would lay in bed and think about what had happened that day and how she'd responded and how she could fix mistakes or react better next time. She'd review her life.

I often review my life. And for a long while it's been the whole scope of things--how that one day playing with my grandma's neighbors in their backyard with their puppy affected me as a child and transferred into who I am as an *cough* adult. I write with metaphor and often it's based on those moments as a kid that seemed utterly insignificant but now stand out as something utterly important, even if it's just for the fact I remember them.

I was on a date, ironically shortly before the optimistic life realization. They may or may not be related. You can twist/interpret my words as you may. I was on a date and we, as happens on introductory dates, were divulging information about ourselves.

And I kept running out of things to say. I made it through Jason Mraz and Back to the Future and suddenly I was drawing blanks. I'm not interested in things. I don't have hobbies. I felt very much insufficient and pointless. And my lack of sharing, of taking advantage of this guy genuinely wanting to hear me brag about myself, has nagged me for the past few days. To the point that today when I was at work and suddenly remembered a moment in my grandma's neighbors backyard where we were playing house in their little shed and a bee swarmed us and we had to abandon the little red bowl in our haste to safety.

I realized that I have a life behind me. I have memories and interests and experiences that are uniquely mine and mean absolutely nothing to anyone I cross paths with. But that someday I'll have shared those things. Someday someone will know my pointless stories. And how can I give up a few hours into a date, believing I've got nothing more to disclose.


I wasn't going to talk about that. What I sat down to blog (or rather stayed awake to blog/delayed watching Arrested Development to blog) is that I'm not so much looking at the long-range scheme of things, such as those memories from a childhood at grandma's, but the more recent things.

I auditioned for Pickleville Playhouse (in Bear Lake) in March, I think, and had I made a show it would have entailed rehearsing in Logan and living in Bear Lake for the summer for performances, which I would get paid for. It was an interesting and very much desirable idea.

But it would mean going seasonal at work and holding off on any Bountiful/Centerville life I would possibly have had that summer.

So I started to make ultimatums.

-If I don't make Pickleville I'll get red highlights in my hair.
-If I don't make Pickleville I'll buy a pet rat.
-If I don't make Pickleville I'll go on a mission.

That's the truth. I'm not exaggerating.

I didn't make Pickleville. I made Improvables. I didn't make Pickleville. I made 12 Angry Jurors.

Today at work I ran into the previous PTA president at West Bountiful Elementary, the lady who hooked me up with the directing gig. She told me she wasn't next year's PTA president, but that I was coming back next year for the musical, that the producer-mom would contact me in the summer about picking a show.

I got an email with the Improvables June schedule and I'm playing a show at Playbills'.

My director for 12 Angry Jurors told me she thought I'd be a great theatre teacher and then gave me tips/suggestions/offered advice for when I get closer to finishing up.

Things are right. I'm not going on a mission, and that's alright. I'm majoring in theatre, and that's alright. That guy I worried soooo much about didn't want to date me but found someone else, and that's alright. I'm so at peace right now that I can't even describe it. I just...I know I'm where I need to be. I know I'm who I need to be. I know these things are falling in place and I'm welcoming them with open arms. I love that I can look back and see how I just needed time for the mission question to make sense, I just needed time to grow acclimated to the theatre department, I just needed time for the river of life to wash my concerns downstream and for the irrigation gate to drop, sparing me from wasting water on a relationship that wasn't a relationship and wasn't going anywhere. I needed to get my head past the clouds.

And now that I'm there I love looking down and seeing how perfectly logical the path was the whole time, and I can scoff at myself, whom I now perceive to be an ignorant elementary school girl, and my impatience to just press on. I love seeing what I couldn't, and the peace that comes from knowing no matter how horribly lost I felt at those moments, no matter how much it nauseated me at times, regardless of those nights I cried, I was never truly lost. I was never truly wandering aimlessly. I hate to be cliche, but there were footprints in the sand, carrying me. All things are calculated for learning.

I'm just doing what I'm here to do. I'm pressing on, unable to understand what's lurking in the clouds, but hoping with all my faith it's for my good.

And that's life. It's a sunny day that's slightly overcast, and some moments you find yourself bathed in shade, but you get past the cloud and the sun's still shining.

Even if I don't see it, the sun's still shining.

I'd Like to Say We've Tasted Love

One thing I've come to notice is how life isn't what you expect. Meaning that a lot of the benefits/realizations/friendships I've received have come from moments when I didn't expect anything of the type to take place.

I could go with the laundry list, but I think I'll stick with what's relevant this instant.

You see, when my old pal Ellen (not the one with the talk show, though she is planning on chopping her hair off) invited me down to her home for the day, I was expecting to trade war stories of my single life and her newly married life. I was expecting to rehash and revamp our friendship. I was expecting to get to know her husband a bit more.

I wasn't expecting what I got.

(Yes, I got all that I expected, but there was something else. And it went like this.)

Ellen is one of two long time good friends who are married, and the only one I have "hung out with" since the name-change. Tonight was my first experience as the third wheel to a married couple; it wasn't awkward, that's not what I'm saying. I just...

There's something different about love bonded by marriage when it's not your grandparents or you parents or the spunky young couple that moved into the ward when you were thirteen. There's something different about seeing a peer--someone you passed notes to in Junior High, someone who went to your first Jason Mraz concert with you (and the Jonas Brothers...), someone who fangirled over the same low-level boyband that never got off the ground--there's something different when someone who was once like you is...

Complete.

I guess I just never really realized what marriage--and love--looked like until this late afternoon, in the backseat watching them out of the corner of my eye interact. I'm not from a broken home: I've had good models on what a successful relationship is, but it took my parents some 27 years to get where they are. Ellen and Sean are at seven months (in two days). This is what those 27 years looks like at the starting gate. This is what it would look like for me.

And I realized I haven't had that. I haven't had that flawless comfort and banter, that connection that still buzzes in the dead air between the passenger seat and the driver's. I haven't been linked like that. And it's not a thing that magically happens when an I Do is spoken or whatever it is that takes place at the alter in the temple takes place. I'm sure that helps, but the link comes before that. The love comes before that.

And as much as I've wanted it and been willing to give it, as much as I've tried to make it happen, I haven't had that yet.

And that's what I needed today for. That's why I had to gird up my little car and head into the valley. That's why Ellen invited me. That's what I needed to get that I didn't expect.

Every "relationship" I've had hasn't been that, not yet. And it doesn't mean I'm in the wrong or failing. It's just suddenly I'm aware there's more to be looking for than I have been, and that yes love is hard, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as I'm making it. It doesn't have to hurt as much as I convince myself it needs to. When it's right I should be happy; without having to talk myself into it. If it hurts, if it feels as disgusting as it does right now then it's time to walk away.

It's safe to walk away, knowing that the day will come when I arrive somewhere expecting to order an ice cream or interview for a job or whatever it is, and I'll walk away with something else. I'll walk away with someone else who won't have to hesitate in taking a risk and chasing me and who wants to include me in his life and surround himself in mine, who will have the faith in what he feels and the trust that God wouldn't let him make such a drastically wrong decision, but that sometimes we have to make a choice before He nods His head or guides our eyes in the right path. Sometimes it takes the exercising of our flawed reasoning to activate the divine hand of our Heavenly Father; sometimes we have to take that blind step in the dark and exert our efforts before He intercedes His. And someday, somewhere, there will be someone who realizes all of this in as narrow of a window as I do, and together we'll see more clearly. And together we'll progress.

And I guess that's love. And that's what I'm looking for.

Maybe the Best Hasn't Happened Yet

Let me teach you something:

Life doesn't turn out like you expect it to.

And regardless how many times you learn this lesson, the knowledge never seems to stick. You stroll away and continue to make expectations out of life, to personify your view of an ideal world onto the actions of others. You place a contingency on the fault of mankind.

Inevitably, things fall through.

Here's a story.


In ninth grade the local theatre became home to a budding improv comedy troupe: The Improvables. I was taking acting classes there at the time, and attended the shows as often as a junior high student lenient on her parents' inclination to drive her around at ten o'clock at night could. The group continued to play and I waxed on in age and entered high school.

My junior year going to The Improvables was a rad thing to do; a couple boys from musical were in the troupe, so a gaggle of us would go after football games to support. It became a regular thing for me and my best friend at the time to go see the shows weekly (they only performed Friday nights). Before long audience participation games began to creep up.

I volunteered.

Every time. To the extent that I recall Paco once telling me no, someone else needed to have a turn.

You see, I wanted to be an Improvable. I'd taken acting classes at the theatre for five years, and each "semester," if you will, started with a few weeks of improv games. It was invigorating and excellent and I loved it.

The Improvables did beginner workshops, but they were on Saturday mornings, and I was barely nine months into a job at a bakery that had said flat out from the beginning "You have to work every Saturday. You can't take them off for dances or things. Saturdays are a must."

So I could never workshop. So I could never be an Improvable.

The closest I would get was audience participation.


Sad story, right? Another dismissed dream and abandoned ambition. Another letdown, another aspect of my ideal life to lack.

You're right. It's horribly sad. To 16 year-old Erica. It's sad in the moment.

Because, as a junior in high school not cognitive enough to ask her super kind coworker/boss if she could come in a few hour late on Saturdays for a month, did I know management at the store would change? Did I know our numbers would dwindle and I would be the most experienced closer left? Did I know the separation between morning shift and closing shift on a Saturday would become more separate and distinct?

As a junior in high school did I know I'd be friends with Paco on facebook and get an invite to Improvables auditions? Did I know, though not making it in the troupe after auditions, that I'd become well acquainted with one of them who would invite me to linger with the Improvables after at Dee's? Did I know there'd be a beginner's workshop I was capable of attending for the first time?

Did I know in four years time I'd be accepted into the troupe? Did I know in four years I'd finally be an Improvable?

No. No I didn't.


And that's my point, reader. That's my point.

We see what's around us, we see where we're at immediately. I don't know where I'll be next year, I sure as heck don't know where I'll be in four years. I'd forgotten the Improvable dream. I'd been letdown, been upset, and moved on. I'd applied for colleges and wound up at the one I least wanted to go to and would most fully love with all my heart. I'd focused on performing well so I could get a bit of the spotlight senior year. I started decorating cakes at work.

The Improvables crossed back into my perceptions when I was ready for them. But I didn't know.


Life doesn't turn out like you expect it to. I expected to be an Improvable in high school. I expected to go to college in Virginia. I expected to be in the publishing process by my 20th birthday. Those things didn't happen. My life is awful.

To 16 year-old Erica.



My great expectations have fallen through. I've been shattered again for assuming too much of a person, and it's the same lesson I learned before. The same lesson I planned to pen in the novel I was going to have in print by now. I'm not in control here. I'm not the all-seeing eye. I don't have a magic coin that makes my wishes come true or a Brechtian ability to break the fourth-wall. I am subject to my story. And no, it's not going how I expected at all. It's not taking the turns I mapped out over the years. I'm not where I wanted to be.

I'm where I need to be.


You can live your life in bitterness, thinking of all the "if's" and "maybe's." You can focus on the failure to win his affections or your inability to get cast in a show outside of an educational setting. You can self-depreciate over your writer's block and lack of time management and hate every obstacle the wind has blown your way.

Or you can look at the musical you're directing, that 100% fell in your lap. You can look at the good fortune of having a college with proficiency in your major so close to home. You can smile that you met Jason Mraz and Daphne Willis performed a mini concert for you and... you're an Improvable.

It was four years more than you expected, but you're an Improvable.

What's coming next? Where am I going? How can I dare be discontent over the cracks my hopes are falling in when there is such a blessing coming down the turnpike? How can I muddle and murmur when tomorrow is an open slate, and the most skilled hand is waiting to fill it?

Live in the moment, that's the trick to happiness. The past is passed. What made me happy then won't make me happy to dwell upon now; I'm not there anymore. The view from here will never be the view from thirty feet back. A painting is different facing you than from 180 degrees. The future is as unwritten as my next breath; safety lies in patience. Happiness comes from the wait. When I idealize and fantasize tomorrow is when the pain builds up. Life doesn't turn out like you expect it to.

Stop expecting it to.

I may have said this here before but I feel it should be said again: Stop praying for what you expect. Pray to find what He expects for you.

He's writing the story. He knows your course. He knows you're 16 and can only see this moment, this hour of broken expectations and hopes, this instant of failed ideals. He knows what you'll be in four years, what you'll miss, what you'll crave, what you'll actually have. He knows what you'll need and He's planned when to give it to you.

I didn't know then. I could have never known then all of the blessings and miracles that would shatter through my stain glass sunlight and illuminate my life. So many things have happened in the last few months, so many dreams/hopes/wishes have been brought into reality in ways I never expected. And all I have expected has crumbled in contrition, dampening the levity of life.

Hope in Him. Pip, take these great expectations and set them aside. See the world for what it really is, see the beauty of your life in His eyes, in His plan.

So your blueprint wasn't fulfilled. That's not what He was hired to do. He's not working for you.

He's working with you, and giving in the moment. The moment won't be now. The moment might be in four years, but it's coming.

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." -Matt 6:34-

Four years from now I'll look back at these failed expectations and they'll either be humorously pathetic or surprisingly fulfilled.

Who knows, maybe the best hasn't happened yet.

Please Don't Say You Love Me

I had an abundance of misfortune catacombed around my temples, lending my thoughts down narrow roads of empty cobwebs and distant lights I couldn't make out with the nightfall. I wrapped my arms about myself in that familiar way reminiscent of a home I don't remember; that second part of human nature that we spend our lives wandering in wait for.

I can't draw the emotion out of myself with my own arms.

I was washed over with an overbearing notion of freedom, lacerated by the tethering bindings that hold me where I stand. I am stuck, crystallized or bogged to this surrounding, but all the while liberated and alive. I retain an abundance of hope and patience previously alien to my mortal mind. The lights remain, visibly dancing away from my grasp, but they remain, and with them the idea that someday I will stand among them. Someday I shall know them.

That notion alone constitutes as enough.

I understand wandering in wait is necessary. Time will come. I'll have the lights one day.



I never understood this song. I enjoyed it, but didn't understand where she was coming from.

I think I do now. And everything vague thing I'm capable of penning here at this exact moment is breached in full in this song, and better and more vaguely than I could ever dream of scripting.

So I'll let it speak. You can close your eyes and ignore the multicolored hands. Or push play and scroll up to avoid seeing the video at all. I purposefully chose the lyric version and not the music video because I didn't want the song bogged down by the director's story.

Take the words for what they are.

Please don't say you love me.

Patience does not suit me like a birthday suit.

She strips her clothes off when anxiety hits.
I rend my heart twain.
She rambles in the car,
I scribe words of self disdain.

I keep falling back on the analogy of stripping off clothes. Not in an erotic means; metaphor. Simile. Put on your literary caps, chaps. 

She strips her clothes off when anxiety hits.
I marvel at composure
Rent along the seams
Of patchwork stitches and
Needle-thing points,
Making mirrors of emotion
Echo back the heart.

I find a cigarette in the dumpster.
He'd been off the stuff for months, but
The sorrow of the human condition is the tendency
For relapse
Into something so divine.
Each man finds that sense
Of divinity,
Whether lasting or earthly,
And he consumes and usurps as much
As possible
Before the supply dries and he's
Abandoned by addiction to a realm
Of back-sided hands.

I apologize for this post. It's stream of consciousness. Usually I edit the floundering out, but Jason Mraz has done this on occasion and it really works. 

And I'm falling asleep but there is so much yet to say.

She strips her clothes off when anxiety hits.
I bite my lower lip and roll over,
Forgetting what I want
And what I was,
embedded in this bed
Partaking of the body of
Hope
That resides in the ludicrous
Pumping of my veins and ventricles;
Words I hate to express.
Notions I hate to remember.

She strips her clothes off when anxiety hits,
And I can't help but applaud the metaphor.
I want to remove this cup from me,
To shed the skin
That clings so forcefully
Against my blazing heart
And peel off tenderly
The fabric that contains me,
To set it aside and wade into the water.
Whether I drown or wash clean
I've yet to decide,
But this corset is too much,
These surroundings too full
Of all I yearn to forget,
Move past,
And wait for.

Patience does not suit me
Like a birthday suit.

I'm cleaning my room tomorrow. I'm unhappy with everything and anything so suddenly that it's the only solution I can conjure, aside for the fact that it desperately needs to be done. I have a 1940's hope chest to place at the foot of my bed, and a room to rearrange so it will fit.

Dad is good about sensing my unhappiness. Last we changed the room, it stemmed from unhappiness.

That was high school.

I can't change my scenery. I can't get Virginia or anything else because I'm meant to be here, right now. I'm meant to wait. I have to find newness somewhere else.

I gripped the collar of my jacket and felt my arms shaking. I wanted to do it. I wanted to give in to the horrible motion in my stomach, the bubbling and gurgling of nauseating anxiety that had plagued me for weeks, and rend my clothes. I wanted the angels scribing my life to place the phrase they penned for the bible. That I rent my clothes.

But more than that, it seemed necessary. I wanted to take each article bit by bit and discard it somewhere I could pick it up when needed, but be content to ignore and rediscover on a day in a year where it no longer matters.

I wanted to stop worrying, caring, wondering. I needed to be waiting.

I moved my arms and grabbed the hem. I pulled up.